Learn how to setup Google Data Studio report tracking in Google Analytics

Created by John Smith

This is a case of what I would call, “Analyzing the analytics”. A lot of analysts and BI professionals focus on building dashboards and creating reports for different stakeholders. However, once the report is finalized and the right access levels assigned to users, how does tracking usability and adoption of the report works? In this post, I will show you how to install Google Analytics report tracking within Data Studio. We are going to explore the report tracking implementation process, as well as the reporting menus in Google Analytics that provide insights on-page engagement.

Set up the Google Analytics report tracking code

Firstly, you would have to navigate to the “Report settings” in your Data Studio report. Then, on the right side, you will see an input field for the Google Analytics Tracking ID. All you have to do is place the tracking code in the standard UA-XXXXX-Y format, no need for any complex implementation.

Now, to obtain the tracking code, you would need a new Google Analytics account and property. If you are starting from scratch, I would recommend the following hierarchy:

Account -> Google Data Studio Reports
- #1 Property -> Dashboard/Report #1
- #2 Property -> Dashboard/Report #2
- #3 Property -> Dashboard/Report #3

The tracking works on a property-level, therefore each Data Studio report can be assigned to only one property. This means that all report pages you are going to add in the future will be tracked in that property. You can initiate the account setup by simply going to the admin settings in Google Analytics.

Once you complete all the setup steps, you are going to see your Tracking ID displayed in the console. Then, a simple copy/paste into your Data Studio report settings should do the trick.

Get page engagement insights from your reports

The easiest way to see how each page in your report is performing is to:

Navigate to “All Pages” in the Behavior menu.
Pick “Page Title” as a primary dimension to avoid the messy URL default structure.
You should be able to see some classic Google Analytics metrics “Pageviews”, “Avg. Time on Page”, “Bounce Rate” and etc.

I hope this was helpful! If you have any questions, feel free to DM me on LinkedIn or subscribe to my newsletter for more updates ?

Dynamic Dashboards and Data Analysis with Google Data Studio

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Lachezar Arabadzhiev

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View Comments

Lee Hurst says:

February 9, 2020 at 6:02 pm

HI Lachazar! I am really liking your blog here - One thing I'm a little surprised at in this post - Why didn't you bring it back to a Data Studio report instead of stopping at Analytics? One thing users might want to do is include a hidden page on their reports, they are only visible to editors, that shows the usage of the report itself, or you might want to keep a master view of all your reports in Data Studio. There are not as many metrics to follow, so it makes a nice overview report.
- Lachezar Arabadzhiev says:
  
  February 11, 2020 at 1:55 am
  
  Hey Lee, thanks for commenting and glad to hear you are enjoying the content! This is a great suggestion and I will hopefully expand the post in the coming weeks to include a sample Data Studio dashboard exemplifying usage tracking in action :)